


Wash away the day

by twinewool (colouredwool)



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Hair Washing, M/M, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 11:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16262990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colouredwool/pseuds/twinewool
Summary: Sometimes flying as a hobby has its downsides.





	Wash away the day

Cascabel stares at the sight that greets him on the driveway.

“The hell happened to you?"

Even looks thoroughly dishevelled, not unusual when he spends an afternoon out flying, but he's also damp, streaked with mud, and speckled in bits of green. Cascabel can see his friend Salto-An following behind. She can't exactly grin with her beak, but Cascabel can read the amused tick of her brow as she catches his eye.

“Well,” Even starts as he squelches up the drive. His suit must be soaked. “It got pretty rough when we were flying out over the west valley, and as I was coming down into a crosswind I went into a dive maybe a _bit_ too soon…” 

“He crash landed in a pond,” Salto-An says.

Cascabel laughs. “Aw, bud.”

“He's fine.” Salto-An waves a claw, and Cascabel can't help but notice how clean her feathers are. Her legs and lower claws meanwhile are distinctly green. “When I realised he hadn't done himself an injury I had a good laugh myself.”

Even sighs. “Otherwise it was a pretty fun flight.”

“You did good! I'm proud of you!” She clasps a claw on his shoulder. “Had a beautiful, scenic glide over Seiche for a few hours before you fucked up spectacularly.”

She crows, laughing, and Even flicks a stray bit of pond scum in her direction. Salto-An flicks it off cheerfully and ruffles her feathers.

“Anyway. I'll get myself home now I've dropped this mucky duckling off.” She pats Even's shoulder. “Take care of yourself. And you Cascabel. I'll see you sometime at the Olympic.”

Even raises a wing and Cascabel salutes goodbye as Salto-An launches off from the ground, leaving the pair of them to watch her fly towards the other side of Seiche.

Cascabel turns to Even once she’s disappeared out of view and shakes his head, fighting the urge to laugh at how forlorn he looks, caked in mud and dripping slightly.

“Listen, I'd kiss you hello but I can smell you from here,” he says. “It's bad. Sewer water bad.”

Even looks genuinely upset and Cascabel laughs.

“I guess there are some benefits to having no sense of smell,” Even says, half laughing too, looking down at his ruined flight suit. “Must have been hell for Salto-An flying behind me the whole way home.”

Cascabel comes up to him and tugs at the collar before recoiling at the slimy texture. “Maybe get this gross thing off and go take a shower.”

“Trust me, there's nothing I want more right now.”

Even trudges through the front door and into the hall, careful not to let his wings touch the walls. His feet suction slightly to the floor with each step and he grimaces.

Cascabel closes the door behind him. The show he was watching on the mesh is still playing in the background and he shuts it off as the sound of the shower starts from down the hall.

He considers for a moment, glancing at the side project he was working on laid out across the table, before heading into the bedroom to change into an old t-shirt and shorts.

The shower room is big – big enough that Even can stretch one wing all the way out from one corner to the other. There's plenty of room for Cascabel to step in and join him, nudging aside the flight suit that's been abandoned by the door.

“Want some help?” Cascabel asks over the sound of the water.

It's clear that even a quick rinse has washed the worst of the muck away, but the joints and overlaps of Even's wings still look gummed up and grimy.

Even turns and smiles. “Yes please.”

Cascabel grabs a washcloth, rinsing it in the spray before coaxing Even to spread out his left wing. Up close he can see where little bits of dirt and vegetation have gathered and he begins to scrub them away, one section at a time. The cloth is brown in seconds.

“How long were you in this pond?”

Even adjusts the showerhead as he redirects the water to his other side. “Well, I slipped on the banks before I was dunked under. Salto-An seemed genuinely worried when she followed me down, so it must have looked rough. It was kind of deep. There was a lot of algae.”

“Yeah, no kidding. This stuff is everywhere.”

Even scrubs down the underside of his right wing in tandem with Cascabel on his left, before they swap round to do alternate sides.

Cascabel can't help but notice a few scrapes and bruises on Even's plating here and there. Light discolouration and thin shedding layers that come away with the water. Even shrugs it off.

“There's no cuts. I’m not going to come down with some pond disease.”

“Hmm.” Cascabel runs his thumb lightly over a mark. Some of the dumber stunts Salto-An and Even have pulled on their flights have ended in broken bones. For both of them. He should probably be thankful these scrapes will be healed up in a day or so. “If you start turning green don't say I didn't warn you.”

Even huffs a laugh and reaches up to try and wash out his hair. Cascabel can see the dirt still trapped between the base of the tendrils. It always gets cramped trying to clean close to the scalp where they pack together.

“Hey, just a moment.”

Cascabel slips out of the shower room and grabs a low stool from the kitchen, leaving wet prints along the hall. He comes back and sets it on the tiles.

“Okay, sit down old man. I'll do your hair.”

Even sinks down onto the stool with a quiet sigh, wings tucking neatly in towards his back. He forgets far too often that whether or not his body needs sleep he still gets tired, and Cascabel intends to keep him off his feet.

There's a variety of oils and soaps on the wall rack and Cascabel reaches out, hesitating. Over half the bottles are things Even picked up back when he was experimenting with what worked best on his skin. Cascabel grabs the one that looks the most used, checking the label on the side that just says “head stuff” in Even’s handwritten scrawl. When he opens it up it smells rich and citrusy.

“It’s just hair oil. I’m pretty sure you’ve used that one too.” Even is watching him from the stool, laughing a little at the investigation. He’s turned the shower off for now and Cascabel’s glad he kept some layers on. It’s colder in the tiled room without the steam to warm it up.

“You’ve got so many,” Cascabel complains as he pours some of the oil out into his palm and puts the bottle back on the rack. “I never remember what they all are.”

Even turns back around and Cascabel reaches for the first layer of tendrils, sinking his oiled fingers down to the roots at the front. At rest the tendrils are no thicker than his fingers, but when they shift in length they begin to bulge or thin out accordingly. Even adjusts them a little so they don’t crowd Cascabel’s hands, giving him room to rub out the leftover bits of dirt.

The tendrils are softer than they look. Elastic skin stretched over bands of muscle, supple under his hands as they shift around the metallic core. It takes a minute or so before Cascabel works out the last of the muck and he grabs the showerhead to rinse away the light lather, leaving Even's roots clean.

“Want me to do the rest?” he asks, running a long tendril between his fingers.

Even hums and nods, eyes already closed as he leans back into the touch. Cascabel grins and presses a kiss to his forehead.

He oils up his hands again.

As he presses along each tendril, working from base to tip, Even loosens up and the tendrils respond a little more. A few start to follow Cascabel's movements, lightly wrapping around his forearms to tug him closer and chasing him as he shifts to the next tendril. He tuts, but Even only chuckles quietly, his breath coming slow as he’s lulled by the rhythm of each push and pull.

The soft squeeze of muscle as the tendrils wind around Cascabel’s fingers is gentle, a stark contrast to their full strength. He’s used to seeing Even suspend himself from the ceilings of cockpits with them – watched him pull his entire weight along on only one or two before. He still marvels at the extremes of Even's body, the changes he's undergone, the rapid adaption to each new facet of himself.

He remembers the first time he saw Even after the Miracle, back when he was still test-piloting prototypes.

Cascabel hadn’t meant to stare, but it had been hard not to pause in the doorway. To run his eyes over the carapace that had replaced almost all of Even’s visible skin, the skeletal shifts in his legs, the head tendrils that – despite being braided loosely at the base of his neck – were clearly moving, the ends split like twists of wire. Even had taken Cascabel’s awed silence gracefully, smiling a little as he said, “ _yeah, I know”_ , and stepped into Cascabel’s apartment.

It had been a nice evening. The back and forth of stories not yet shared over the messages they’d sent, things better told in person over food and in-between episodes of bad mesh shows. He'd been nervous about making Even uncomfortable. Had tried not to linger too long on the familiar warping of Even's hands as he assimilated the leftover tech Cascabel had brought him from the workshop.

Even hadn’t shied away from his hybridisation though. He'd even demonstrated how his hair worked on the apartment systems, shifting temperature and lighting and turning on appliances, happy to indulge Cascabel’s curiosity.

 _“You know,”_ Even had said after unhooking himself and resetting the lights. _“This part of things hasn’t been so hard to get used to. When it's just me and a ship out in the Mirage everything feels so in tune. Do you know how amazing it is to just think and have a ship respond instantly? The rush when it clicks, and I can just sense all the components, map all the pathways connected up to my brain like – like a second nervous system. Man, it’s so good.”_

Even had been grinning, eyes lit up, a few tendrils curling out of the braid onto his shoulder. It was a cute tell Cascabel had learnt early on, the way his hair moved with his mood.

Then Even had deflated.

 _“But when I get back to base between flights...I don’t know. It's weird. The most ordinary, everyday things just aren't part of my life anymore. Everyone runs on a routine of mealtimes, work shifts, and sleep, but my body doesn't need that now. It’s all supplements and never-ending days blurring into one.”_ Even’s hair had been flat against his neck, still and tense. “ _There’s no-one else to say ‘yeah, me too buddy’ when I get brain fuzz from plugging into a machine for too long. Nobody getting their wings stuck on chairs or in doorways. It's jarring. There’s just a…disconnect I can’t get used to.”_

Even had sighed, and then looked sheepishly at Cascabel.

_“Sorry, I didn’t come here to moan at you.”_

_“Hey, you’re dealing with a hell of a change. You know I’m here to listen if you need me.”_

Cascabel had wanted to reach out then, take Even’s hand, touch his shoulder, cup his cheek – something physical and grounding to reassure him. But he’d sat on the sofa, hands still, maintaining the boundaries that kept their friendship steady. Dependable and safe when there was so much upheaval going on elsewhere in their lives.

Cascabel's glad he can be here now. No reservations or hesitations. He can check over Even when he’s hurt, clean him up, help him unwind all the tension from a bad day, make him rest his body when he’s worked it too long. Know that with each touch and response how much Even trusts him and wants him to be there.

When Even seems almost asleep on the stool, loose-limbed and breathing quietly, Cascabel untangles his hands and rinses off Even’s hair.

“Feeling better?” he asks, leaning round to check all the excess oil is washed away.

“Mmm. Much better.” Even blinks his eyes open slowly, easing himself upright on the stool. He reaches up to Cascabel and gently pulls him in for a kiss. “Thank you,” he murmurs against his lips.

Cascabel smiles. “You're welcome. You definitely smell better now.”

He laughs, backing away as Even flicks him lightly with a tendril, leaning back in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Even stands up, stretching out his hair and wings in one lazy motion. He comes back to attention in time to catch the towel Cascabel throws his way. There's a set of dry clothes hanging on the back of the door and Cascabel throws them over too.

“Aren’t you cold?” Even asks once he’s dressed. He tugs at Cascabel’s thin t-shirt and shorts that have gotten wet in the shower spray.

“Eh. A little.”

Even takes this as an excuse to towel Cascabel down too and bundle him into one of the robes from the cupboard, fleecy and warm.

“Hey, I’m not the one who fell into a pond.”

“No. But you did just take care of me for like, most of an hour.” Even ties the belt of the robe with his hands whilst his hair tucks the collar up around Cascabel’s chin, soft against the skin there. “Now I’m gonna make dinner whilst you tell me about that weird thing you were working on this afternoon.”

“I mean it’s far from finished, but that weird thing’s the new battery for the car.”

“I…thought Surge was doing that.”

“Yeah, he gave me the prototype to test.”

“Uh huh.” Even sighs, and Cascabel grins at him as he leads the way into the kitchen. “Fun as it is to try out these new prototypes, I really don't think we should try it on _our_ car first…”

They leave the sodden flight suit on the shower floor for later. It’ll wash up fine before Even’s next flight.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The full ‘Gig interviews the crew’ recording is a joy, but the bits we got about Even a) being excited to show off his cool tendril hair and b) not knowing how to wash said hair were too good and I kinda spiralled into writing this. Shout out to Dre for fuelling my domestic headcanons about these two.


End file.
